Ashina Morishige

• Birth: 1575
• Death: 1631
• Other Name: Satake Yoshihiro, Yoshikatsu
• Lord of Aizu
• Japanese: 蘆名　盛重

Morishige was the 2nd son of Satake Yoshishige. In 1587 he married the daughter of Ashina Moritaka. His adoption as the Ashina daimyô in the wake of the murder of Moritaka created strife within the clan and a number of retainers went over to the Date, who had also offered to provide an heir. The Ashina and Satake struck up an alliance against the Date and came near to defeating the latter at Hitadori in 1585. The failure of that campaign and the internal problems within the Ashina eventually allowed Date Masamune to finally gain the upper hand against them. Date Masamune defeated Morishige at Suriagegahara and afterwards captured Kurokawa (1589). Morishige was allowed to retire to Hitachi province.

References

• Sengoku Jinmei Jiten
• Initial text from Sengoku Biographical Dictionary (Samurai-Archives.com) FWSeal & CEWest, 2005